Publisher's Synopsis
When we meet a young woman with a serious illness, we tend to label her an outlier. But while we might think of young female patients as anomalies, they are, statistically, the primary demographic for many major illnesses. And they are also one of the most overlooked populations in our health-care system—a system that not only ignores young women to begin with, but women of color and trans women even more severely. Weaving together interviews with young women who have experienced severe illnesses, insights from scientists on the study of gender and illness, and her own harrowing story of coming of age with serious medical issues, Michele Lent Hirsch exposes just how much our gender norms hurt women who are already hurting, and how sexism prevails both in relationships and at the doctor's office.
